The present invention relates to a connector, and more particularly, to a connector in which an outer periphery portion of an insulator is covered with a metal shell, and a ground plate held by the insulator is disposed inside the metal shell.
Recently, electronic devices such as computers and portable telephones have been widely used. These electronic devices are usually provided with a connector used to send and receive electric signals and power to and from external apparatuses. As a connector of this type, a connector having a countermeasure against electromagnetic interference (EMI) by covering the outer periphery portion of the insulator which holds contacts, with a metal shell is desirable in order to prevent the electric signals being transmitted through the connector from being affected by electromagnetic waves entering from outside, and in order to prevent electromagnetic wave noise generated by the electric signals being transmitted through the connector from affecting electronic devices in the vicinity.
In a connector with a metal shell of this type, a further attempt is made to have a connector configuration in which a ground plate adjacent to a contact is held by an insulator, and is disposed inside the metal shell, so that when the connector is fitted into a mating connector, a ground terminal of the mating connector is brought into contact with the ground plate.
In such a connector, it is necessary to electrically connect the ground plate disposed inside the metal shell and the metal shell.
Thus, in order to ensure the connection between the ground plate and the metal shell, a method is considered in which laser light, for example, is irradiated to the metal shell from outside with a portion of the ground plate being in contact with an inner surface of the metal shell, so that the ground plate and the metal shell are laser-welded together while being in contact with each other.
However, because the metal shell of the connector is required to have a mechanical strength greater than that of the ground plate, when configuring a small connector, in particular, the thickness of the metal shell is set to a value greater than the thickness value of the ground plate. Therefore, in an attempt to weld the metal shell and the ground plate by irradiating laser light from outside the metal shell, it is necessary to use laser light having an output strong enough to melt the metal shell. However, such laser light can also easily melt and pass through the ground plate which is thinner than the metal shell, causing connector components located further inside the ground plate, to be damaged by laser light.
For example, in JP 2008-173657 A, a method is disclosed, as shown in FIG. 10, in which when bonding a conductor 2 to a connecting section of a segment 1 of a commutator, a through-hole 3 is formed in the segment 1, and the conductor 2 is located so as to fill up one end of the through-hole 3, and laser light L is irradiated from the other end of the through-hole 3 through the through-hole 3 to the conductor 2, so that the segment 1 and the conductor 2 are laser-welded.
In the method described in JP 2008-173657 A, because laser light L is irradiated to the conductor 2 through the through-hole 3 formed in the segment 1, it is not necessary to use laser light L having an output strong enough to melt and pass through the segment 1 in a thickness direction. Laser light L with a small output may be used to weld the segment 1 and the conductor 2.
However, in a small connector, a ground plate located in a metal shell is formed to be very thin. Therefore, if the method described in JP 2008-173657 A is applied to weld the metal shell and the ground plate by irradiating laser light through the through-hole formed in the metal shell, it is difficult to weld the ground plate and the metal shell by melting only a part of the ground plate in a thickness direction of the ground plate, without passing through the thin ground plate. That is, there is a problem in which it is difficult to weld the metal shell and the ground plate without damaging the connector components located further inside the ground plate.